Throughout the course of history, presidential campaigning has evolved commensurate with the advancements in technology. FDR mastered the radio, JFK the television and President Barack Obama, the Internet. In both the 2008 and 2012 Presidential campaigns, President Barack Obama used social media via the Internet to understand the voter better than any candidate before his time. Through revolutionary data collection techniques, both offline and online, the Obama campaign obtained vital electorate information. This data was used by the campaign to: target online social media users who were most likely to become politically engaged; and attempt to influence their voting habits, two of the most crucial measures of a successful presidential campaign. This paper analyzes whether the social media campaign strategy deployed by President Barack Obama in both the 2008 and 2012 elections was successful in its attempt to influence the electorate. This is accomplished by evaluating voter turnout and engagement based on targeted demographic groups. Next, I assess how social media has impacted fundraising in the 2st1 century, particularly following the aftermath of the Federal Elections Campaign Act (FECA) in 1974. Finally, I analyze how social media effectively assisted President Obama’s campaign in mobilizing the electorate both online and offline to his benefit.

Before addressing how gentrification affects a community, there must be an explanation of how gentrification looks at a community. Tom Borrup in Protecting Cultural Space or Urban Re-colonization: When Do Cultural Districts Cross the Line? refers to cities as “cultural districts” and defines “progenitors” and “driving forces” (Borrup, 2015). Progenitors are “people who feel a sense of attachment to a neighborhood such as those who live, work, and operate small businesses there…often active in and integral to the formation of cultural districts and to the identity the community adopts” (Borrup, 2015). Based on Borrup’s definition of progenitors, this paper will identify residents, small businesses, property owners, non-profits and artists as progenitors of a community.

This paper examines and analyzes Hillary Clinton's Twitter account activity between July 1, 2016 and August 28, 2016 in an attempt to determine the perception of authenticity on social media and whether Hillary Clinton was effective in improving her image during the 2016 presidential election. This thesis questions whether Twitter is a reliable tool in determining authenticity.

The sale and consumption of genetically modified foods are highly politicized, and one of the predominant discourses today. Since 2012, several states attempted legislation to label genetically modified foods, losing at very close margins. It wasn’t until a huge senate victory in Vermont that the labeling fight seemed to hold. Unfortunately, at the federal level there was a sound defeat by the Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act, which said that the FDA would monitor what foods should be labeled. This legislation, although appearing to keep the interests of food lobbying groups, was more for the interests of corporate power. This, however, did not deter states from continuing to legislate today, and the fight to does not appear to stop any time soon. The purpose of this paper is to see why anti-GMO lobbying organizations continue to campaign for this issue when efforts have not only failed in every state, and efforts have been slowed down at a federal level. The paper aims to make sense of labeling legislation as a political tactic. Through Gaventa’s analysis of power that he outlines in the book Power and Powerlessness, labeling legislation is understood as a political strategy, and how this movement has created a hegemonic common sense of consumer sovereignty and maintained this hegemonic common sense for years.

For years political fundraising was structured around who could raise the most to outlast their opponent. The 2016 presidential elections showed that this standard was no longer the case. Fundraising was a core aspect of campaign finance that was further advanced with the introduction of Citizens United. It established new outlets of fundraising known as super PACs that changed the dynamics in campaign finance. This further incentivized presidential candidates to raise as much funds as they could. Former Governor of Florida Jeb Bush embodied this new gold standard in his 2016 campaign run. On the other hand, celebrity mogul Donald Trump completely defied all standards with his self-funded 2016 campaign. Bush’s defeat and Trump’s victory represents a new era of campaign finance for future elections.

In this thesis, I seek to undermine the enduring myth that Richard Nixon lost the 1960 televised presidential debates because of John F. Kennedy’s superior looks and overall glamour. Although I do concede that Nixon lost the debates overall, I argue that Nixon gave his best performance in the third debate. Using Nixon’s third debate strategy as a victory paradigm, I show how Nixon could have bested Kennedy in the other debates.

Thesis advisor: Stephen J. Pfohl / Existing studies of governmental responses to human rights allegations emphasize the rhetorical forms that official claims take at the expense of demonstrating how contextual factors influence discourse. Analytically, this dissertation accounts for these factors by theorizing and analyzing how knowledge and culture operate in American political discourse of torture. Drawing on a qualitative content and discourse analysis of 40 congressional hearings, held between 2003 and 2008, this dissertation documents a transition in American politics from a discourse of denial, which downplayed allegations of abuse and torture, to a discourse of acknowledgment, which criticized the Bush administration's interrogation policies on the grounds that the policies permitted torture and undermined U.S. interests. By situating this transition within its institutional and political context, this study examines the influence of documentary evidence of torture, interpretive frames in which American officials situated that evidence, and political power as expressed in control over congressional committees on political discourse. Between 2003 and 2008, a significant volume of documentary evidence of violence against detainees in U.S. custody entered public discourse. Typically, shifts in congressional discourse followed the release of official, documentary evidence produced by government sources, such as military police or FBI agents, that provided first-hand or localized portrayals of abuse and torture at U.S. detention facilities. Such documents, including the photographs taken at Abu Ghraib prison and FBI emails documenting torture at Guantánamo, secured a "reality" of violence that members of Congress found difficult to rationalize as legitimate state violence. This difficulty stems, in part, from the fact that localized portrayals of interpersonal violence frequently capture the excesses of that violence--the irrationality, sadism, and innovations in cruelty of torturers and the vulnerabilities of sufferers of torture. Significantly, though, the political meaning of documentary evidence derives from the interpretive frames in which it is situated. Between 2003 and 2008, "human rights" and the "rule of law" became increasingly available as interpretive frames for the political debate over detention and interrogation. This development resulted from several changes in the political environment, including the Bush administration's mobilization of human rights to legitimize the Iraq war and the Supreme Court's rulings on cases involving detainees. The Democrat's mid-term victory in 2006, which won Democrats control over both the House of Representatives and Senate, also profoundly influenced political discourse. Democrats used congressional committees to pursue broad, reflective hearings on the Bush administration's detention and interrogation policies. By inviting legal scholars and representatives of human rights organizations to speak about the policies, the Committees further elevated human rights and the rule of law in the debate about torture. Given these developments, a critical discourse of torture gradually emerged and solidified. This discourse labeled American interrogation practices--known to their supporters as "enhanced interrogation"--as torture and linked their use to significant and negative global consequences for the U.S. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2012. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Sociology.

Thesis advisor: Seth Jacobs / The vice presidencies of Lyndon B. Johnson and Humphrey H. Humphrey were momentous stages in both of their political careers. After leaving the position of Senate majority leader to become John F. Kennedy’s vice president, Johnson underwent a swift, total decrease in political efficacy. Those dark years impacted how he tackled the presidency, particularly in the handling of his own vice president. As Johnson’s vice president, Humphrey also watched the political power he had accrued as Senate majority whip evaporate. In an attempt to impress Johnson, Humphrey overcompensated and became a disciple for the Johnson administration’s unpopular war in Vietnam, destroying any chance Humphrey had to further his political career past the vice presidency. I argue that while their terms as vice presidents—Johnson’s was less than three years long and Humphrey’s was four years—were short periods of time in the grand scheme of their long careers, they were highly consequential for both men and severely damaging for Humphrey. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2017. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Departmental Honors. / Discipline: History.

Thesis advisor: Ken Kersch / This thesis examines the tradition of Catholic natural law conservatism in contemporary American politics. Using the works of Clarence Manion and Robert P. George, it identifies two distinct strands of natural law political philosophy. The analysis concludes with an attempt to reconcile these interpretations with the hope of providing a viable framework for the natural law in modern America. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2010. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Political Science Honors Program. / Discipline: Political Science.

Thesis advisor: R. Shep Melnick / This paper analyzes Pope Francis’s view of politics, particularly politics in the United States. Beginning with his speech before a special joint session of Congress on September 24, 2015, this paper explores many of the themes the Pope introduces in this speech, and compares those themes to those in other works he has published since being elected Pontiff in 2013. Then, this paper applies what he has said about contemporary American politics with the analysis of other scholars of American politics. Ultimately, I find that the Pope is very aware of problems in the United States, but hopes to present a positive alternative to address what he identifies as the contemporary world’s ills. / Thesis (MA) — Boston College, 2016. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Political Science.